


Athena Begins (Again)

by malariamonsters



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23460634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malariamonsters/pseuds/malariamonsters
Summary: Athena Grant feels.
Relationships: Athena Grant & Beatrice Carter, Athena Grant & Emmett Washington, Athena Grant & Michael Grant, Athena Grant/Bobby Nash, Bobby Nash/Athena Grant
Comments: 11
Kudos: 41





	Athena Begins (Again)

Athena came down the stairs to find Bobby bent over on his hands and knees. She let out a laugh at the sight and Bobby turned to look at her from his position next to the couch, which he’d just been peering under. 

“What are you doing?” Athena asked. Her voice was incredulous as she made her way over to him. 

“Harry lost Doc Ock,” Bobby said.

“Gesundheit.”

Bobby laughed at her deadpan. “Doc Ock?” he said. “From Spider-Man?”

Athena waved a dismissive hand. “You know I don’t watch that superhero nonsense. It’s all just noise. Anyway, why are you the one looking for it? Where’s Harry?”

Bobby ducked his head. “Uhhh, over at the Lee’s?”

“Over at the Lee’s?”

“I let him go over so he could play video games before starting his homework. Just for an hour.”

“Harry is over at the Lee’s playing video games while you’re here on your hands and knees looking for his toy?”

Bobby had the presence of mind to look sheepish. His cheeks colored and he gave her a half-smile and a shrug, and Athena had to remind herself not to get distracted by how cute he was. “Baby,” she said, “You’re gonna have to stop being his friend and start being his parent, you know that, right?” 

“I know, I know,” Bobby said. “It’s just, he really loves that toy. Michael got it for him.”

“Then he should have been more careful with it,” Athena said. “He and May are doing the dishes tonight, ok?”

Bobby nodded in agreement. “Yes, definitely.”

Athena nodded and turned then to leave, but Bobby caught her by the arm to stop her. He ran his fingers down her forearm and over her wrist in a caress, then held her hand in his. “No kiss?” he said. She looked back at him, in the old jeans and t-shirt he usually wore on his days off at home. A soft smile came over her at the thought that her home was his home now, too, and that most nights when she missed him, she just had to reach a hand over to find him. She let Bobby pull her back to him, his tug on her arm gentle, and from his position on his knees he drew her flush against him and hugged her, wrapping his arms around her middle and resting his head against her belly. He sighed against her. “Mmmm,” he mumbled. His voice was low and warm. “Love you.” 

Athena curled over Bobby to return his embrace, to run her fingers through his hair. He was so tall that usually when they hugged he was the one who had to lean over to tuck his head into the crook of her neck, but with him like this on his knees and her in her favorite heels, she saw him from a different angle. She pulled back to cup his face in her hands and take him in, and Bobby peered up at her, his brows raised and his lips parted in a soft smile, his expression sincere.

She loved this about him, how affectionate and open he was. She loved how much he loved her kids, their kids. She would never tell him this because he really did have to stop being afraid that if he was ever firm with them they’d reject him, but Athena found the obvious joy he took in pleasing May and Harry adorable. She noticed the intimacies they’d started to build together, her husband and her kids. Fist bumps turned to hugs; the way May didn’t hesitate before asking Bobby for a ride somewhere; how Harry followed him around in the kitchen as he cooked, chattering a mile a minute. Now Bobby knew that when May was upset the best thing to do was to give her her space but let her know he was there if she wanted to talk. On their family movie nights, May would cuddle up next to her on the couch, and Bobby and Harry would sit cross-legged on the floor in front of them, hogging the snacks. 

Bobby and May and Harry, they were making something together, tendrils of connection made up of their own jokes and conversations and shared moments, where they didn’t need her in the middle as the intermediary. It was new and delicate, but they were becoming family, so that Bobby wasn’t just hers anymore, but Harry’s and May’s, too. 

A deep satisfaction bloomed in Athena, and her smile bloomed along with it. She knew right then if she just said the words, Bobby would pick her up and carry her to their room and make love to her just the way she liked it best, slow and a little bit rough. He was so good to her. She tipped his head back, leaned over, and pressed her lips against his in a tender kiss. She let it linger, indulging herself in how his arms tightened around her. When she pulled away she stroked the backs of her fingers along his cheeks affectionately. “I’m off for a drink with Hen, ok?”

“All right,” Bobby said. “My shift starts later, so you won’t see me when you get back.” 

“I’ll miss you,” Athena said. 

“Me, too,” Bobby said. He took her hand in his and placed a kiss against her palm. “But I’ll be home tomorrow.” 

Athena took it for the promise it was.

*

Her mother knew Bobby’s family had died in a fire, but she didn’t know it was a fire for which he himself was responsible. She didn’t know Bobby went to AA meetings and had a sponsor he met with monthly, more frequently in the fall because Marcy and Brooke and Robert Jr. had died in late October. 

Athena could imagine the look her mother would give her if she did know. It’d be full of judgement, because to her Bobby wouldn’t be someone looking for redemption and trying to do better by the world or someone who loved her daughter, but a man who could place her daughter and grandchildren in danger. She would frown at Athena in disappointment because she’d think that she’d brought someone broken and struggling into her life, had promised to love and cherish him for the rest of it. And she wouldn’t hesitate to tell her that she just didn’t understand the reasoning behind the decisions she made. She’d list everything she thought was a mistake in Athena’s life out in a row: going to school so far from home, falling in love with a man who had such a dangerous job, becoming a cop to instead of a lawyer, marrying Michael, having children so late, and now, marrying Bobby. She’d count them off on her fingers as she went, as if it was a tally that summed up the measure of Athena’s life.

When she was younger, all Athena’d had to back up her convictions were her stubbornness to do as she pleased with her own life and her gut instinct. Now, though, she’d had decades to be and grow with herself. She was headstrong, yes, and all the other things her mother accused her of, too. Impulsive and secretive, overly methodical, too easily affected by the pain other people experienced. Secretly wanted to save the world and thought she could do it through hard work and sheer will alone. But since losing a fiancé, since having children and making a home for them, since getting a divorce and facing the prospect of living her middle age alone, Athena had learned that she could trust herself. She could trust what she wanted. And she knew that the one constant over the course of her life was that she always reached out toward love. For Athena, that knowledge was like a tall, clear glass of cold water on a hot day.

Emmett had been that first bloom kind of love. The kind that starts with flirtation and immediate, heart-fluttering attraction, then grows into something hopeful, like a bubble gleaming fluorescent and bright, fragile and rising up, up in the sky, wobbling but staying whole. She’d dated before, had boyfriends before. Her mother disagreed, but Athena hadn’t rushed into her engagement with Emmett or only been swept up in his good looks and his belief that justice was real and could be defended. Emmett had been the first man she’d ever shared her thoughts with. That was real intimacy, more than just a young woman in love with being in love, and glad to be loved back. With Emmett she’d been willing to change herself and her life because he’d looked at her and instead of just seeing something he’d wanted, like with all the other boys she’d dated, he’d seen everything she could be. 

Emmett had been an optimist, righteous and ambitious and full of belief in the possibility of his future, and he’d believed in her. He’d believed she had power, enough to stand up for herself and enough to effect change in the world around her. That was a heady thing to receive from a man she loved, a precious thing to have when she’d just been a young black woman working to prove to herself that she could do all she wanted. In Emmett Athena had seen a future of happiness, and she’d grabbed at it with both hands, filled her fists with it. 

Sometimes she thought of what her life would have been if Emmett hadn’t been murdered. She’d have had a husband her mother adored. No May and Harry, but other children instead. She’d have had them younger, certainly. And instead of becoming a police officer, she’d have been a judge. She would have been so much closer to the daughter her mother wanted her to be. It was only after his murder that Athena had realized that she’d been as much in love with Emmett as with everything she’d believed they would be and do together. With hope came caution, an understanding that it could be snuffed out. But belief, like the belief she’d had in Athena and Emmett, wife and husband who’d fallen in love young, beloved by both sets of in-laws, who would stay together and build an entire life together, was something bigger. It blinded her to the possibility of bursting. Years after Emmett’s death, years after anger and loneliness and throwing herself into her work to distract herself from them, years after becoming a mother herself, Athena would realize that her younger self had wanted what she’d seen her mother had. She’d believed that, being her mother’s daughter, she could live a life like hers. 

*

Athena was on the couch flipping through _People_ magazine and clucking her tongue at celebrities she thought should dress better. The TV was turned on to _Jeopardy!_ , but she had the sound muted. From her seat she could see both her children. Harry was at the kitchen table swinging his legs and doing his homework, and May was on the veranda, pacing back and forth as she spoke into her phone. Athena heard someone at the front door. Like she could distinguish the sound of his footsteps from someone else’s, like she knew if he was smiling just from hearing the sound of his voice, she could tell it was Bobby. He always tried the doorknob first before taking his keys out to unlock it. She’d asked him about it once, and he’d shrugged her off. It’d taken some time for her to pull it out of him, but after drawing him close and holding him, after kissing him, after caressing the back of his neck, he’d told her that it was just a nervous habit, one of many he’d developed after the death of his family. “It wouldn’t have saved them anyway,” he’d said, “but the door’d been locked. I know it wouldn’t have changed anything, I know it, but sometimes I just think—” he’d faltered then, unable to continue, and Athena had rubbed his back to let him know he didn’t need to. He knew it was impractical to leave a door unlocked in L.A. and didn’t think they should start doing so, but just touching the knob reassured him somehow, though there was no logic to it. 

Before Bobby could even make it down the front hall Harry ran from the table to meet him, skidding across the floor in his socks. “Bobby!” he cried out in greeting. When they came into view Harry had both his feet on one of Bobby’s and was clutching him around the middle, so that Bobby had to hold onto him with one arm and swing the leg he was standing on around and forward to walk. He fake-yelled “Aaaargh!” with each swing of his leg, like he was some huge city-destroying monster from one of Harry’s video games, and the whole time Harry cackled gleefully. Athena only let this continue until Bobby reached the living room. Then she held up a finger, arched her eyebrow, and said, “Harry, weren’t you in the middle of something?”

“Ye-es,” he said, pulling out the vowel so the word came out weary and dramatic. He made a show of disentangling himself from Bobby.

“Go ahead, Bud,” Bobby said, “Let me know when you get to your math and I’ll come help you, okay?” He leaned down to place a kiss on Harry’s forehead, then patted his back, nudging him gently back towards the kitchen. He raised a hand in salute to May and without stopping her pacing or her phone conversation she nodded back from outside. Athena watched as Bobby opened his messenger bag, pulled out a white paper bag, and waved it at May. She recognized the pink logo as one from May’s favorite bakery, the one where they’d gotten her last birthday cake, and sure enough May stopped her pacing to give Bobby a wide, delighted grin. She placed a hand over her heart and mouthed, “Thank you!”

For Athena Bobby had a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “Hey, babe,” he said.

“Hi.” Her voice was fond and welcoming.

He settled down next to her, sinking low on the couch so that his back was on the seat cushion and his head was level with her shoulder. He stretched his long legs out in front of him. Athena curled her own legs up, tucked them so that they were snug against his thigh. She propped an elbow against the back of the couch and said, “Harry’s first in his class. You don’t have to help him with his homework.”

“I know,” Bobby said, “But I like to spend the time with him.” He gave her a small smile. It didn’t reach his eyes, and it left his face quickly.

“Hard day?” she asked. Bobby just nodded. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. In the slope of his shoulders and the way he let his body sag against the couch, Athena could tell he was tired. It was more than just the kind of tired that came from a tough day at work, though. That he could talk to her about, that he’d offer without her needing to ask. This was something else. 

Bobby never spoke to her much about his family, but Athena could recognize when they were on his mind. He became quieter than usual, and his expressions seemed somehow fainter or aborted. He slept less, too, got up in the middle of the night and left their bed so that sometimes Athena would come down to find him sitting alone on the veranda, looking up at the dark sky. When he did mention his family to her it was haltingly, and each time Athena saw how it weighed on him, the pain and the shame, the longing and the guilt, both for what he had caused and for missing his old family when his life was now so full with her and May and Harry. 

In her prayers each night Athena said their names—Marcy, Robert Jr., Brooke. She said Emmett’s name, too. She let a moment pass after each, a silence in remembrance of them, an acknowledgment of their lives and the love that was still felt for them, of the loss that was a pain that never faded, just ebbed and flowed, and sometimes made itself known so strongly as to feel almost tangible. She asked God to let Bobby feel heard whenever he prayed. She asked that one day he could feel about his family as she did about Emmett, to be able to think of them without wanting to lose himself to the past. And she gave thanks, that though he was in pain he still loved her and their children so well, still made sure they laughed every day, and was careful not to make his past a burden to them. Athena was old enough to know that she couldn’t take on someone else’s pain, no matter how much she loved them. It would be unfair to herself, and it wouldn’t be a real help. She was grateful that Bobby knew this, too.

That night she offered him what she could. She shifted closer to him on the couch, and easily, without hesitation and without thought, Bobby leaned into her. He moved to place an arm around her, gathering her to him, and Athena circled one behind him, then lay her other hand against his chest, where she could feel his heart beating steadily.

“Hey,” she said.

“Mmmm,” Bobby murmured against her.

“You here with me?”

The smile he gave her this time was real. Even with his eyes closed, it lit up his entire face. His voice was low and rough when he answered her, already edged with sleep. “For as long as you’ll have me,” he said. Athena pressed her lips against his forehead, held him tighter to her, and enjoyed the warmth of his body against hers.

*

In Athena’s mind divorce had always been a dirty word. In the last few years with Michael before the inevitable, she hadn’t even wanted to say it aloud, for fear it would work as some sort of omen. Divorce was an end, a failure. It was antithetical to the basic premise by which she approached the world—that if she wanted something enough, and if she worked hard enough at it, she could and would succeed. She’d grown up with parents who were so in love and so in sync that they made other peoples’ parents look like they were just playing a game, a mimic of the real thing, and so the idea that a marriage could end was wholly foreign to her. Athena had married Michael more for the life she saw she could make with him than for what she felt for him, but she’d still thought that their marriage would last her into their old age, like her mother’s had. She’d never imagined that she would be a divorcee; she was too committed, too full of love for Michael to ever let something like that happen to them. But she discovered that divorce wasn’t a disaster that came to her unbidden and unwanted, like a car crash or a heart attack. Divorce was a choice she made. She walked into it with a clear head and wide eyes, welcomed it because it meant freedom for Michael, and truth for herself. 

Sometimes Athena felt she was closer to Michael now after their divorce than when they’d been married. They were friends, now. It was a friendship that ran deep because they’d made a lifelong commitment to one another, and when they’d broken it, instead of becoming strangers, they’d stayed in each other’s lives. With Hen Athena could gossip and indulge in all the the things Harry liked to call “girly”—going to the salon, getting her nails done, going shopping. She could talk about her work with Hen, the dangers and the excitement, and talk about her mother, too. But in Michael Athena found someone she could share her deepest insecurities with, because he’d already seen the worst of her and he hadn’t turned away. As his wife she’d wanted him to see her as desirable, as strong, as worthy of the promises he’d made to her, but as her closest friend all she wanted from him was his time and his company, and that ability he had to let her be vulnerable without making her feel weak. It took her a while to admit it, but even though Michael had left their marriage, left it so he could find a happiness he could never have with her, he had never, not even for a moment, left her. 

Her mother hadn’t wanted her to marry Michael, of course. She’d claimed a woman couldn’t truly rely on a younger man. She and Michael had said their vows, they’d bought a house together and had May and Harry, and still every time her mother visited she’d press her lips together and look Michael up and down and shake her head. When Athena had told her about the divorce, her voice low and rigid to hide how upset she was to tell her, her mother’d said without hesitation, “I told you so.” But when her family was gathered around her Athena felt no regrets. Somehow, out of the heartbreak of divorce, she’d found a multiplicity, reaped a harvest—her children, Bobby, Michael and his partner, her parents, and colleagues so close they made her family bigger and more joyous. She realized the end of one thing didn’t mean the end of all things, and even though the path she chose was unfamiliar to her because her mother hadn’t walked it before her, it didn’t mean she was lost.

*

“You okay?” Bobby asked. He stopped behind her on the way to the dishwasher and placed a hand on her back. It was warm and comforting between her shoulder blades. Athena was tired from a frustrating day at work and was feeling out of sorts because she’d had an argument with her mother, another to add to the long list. She wasn’t okay. She didn’t like to complain, though, and May and Harry were within earshot of their conversation. She gave Bobby a half smile, shook her head and shrugged. 

“I’m fine,” she said, and swept the bits of food left on the plate she was holding into the trash can in front of her. “Just a long day.”

“Okay,” Bobby said. He rubbed his hand up and down her back, then pressed a kiss to her forehead. Together they finished loading the dishwasher, and when they were done Bobby sat down with May to continue the weeks-long search they were in the middle of for a second-hand car for her to buy, while Athena sat as audience for Harry to practice the Language Arts presentation he had at the end of the week. She gave him advice on things he could improve—“Raise your voice so people at the back of the class can hear you,” “If you get nervous just focus on a point right above someone’s head”—and tried not to laugh when she heard snippets of conversation coming from the living room—May with “Bobby, I am not getting a pickup truck! I want something cute, like a Mini Cooper,” and Bobby’s response, “May, honey, that’s not a car, that’s a toy.”

Later, after she’d checked that Harry had fallen asleep and she’d told May she could keep browsing her phone for fifteen more minutes and no longer, Athena made her way to her and Bobby’s room. On nights when they were both home they had a routine. She’d take off her jewelry and makeup and change into her nightgown, and they’d brush their teeth together in the mirror, picking up and continuing a conversation they’d started the day before, or when they’d spoken over the phone at lunch, or when they’d last seen each other that morning. Talking to Bobby was easy like that, unconstrained by time or place. They’d talk as she applied her face cream for the night, interrupt each other while they were reading, even, and it wasn’t a disturbance at all, but welcome because they liked talking to each other more than anything else they were doing. 

Athena thought she was too tired to talk that night, though. She just wanted to get in bed, fall straight asleep, and forget about the day. But it was dark when she walked into their room. Just a sliver of light was coming from the open door of their bathroom. Through it she heard the sound of their bathtub faucet. Athena made her way towards it, and when she pushed the door further open she found Bobby crouching down next to their tub, running a hand through the water filling it up. He reached over and twisted the faucet shut as she stepped in.

“You like it hot, right?” he said.

“What is this?” Athena asked.

“It’s a bath.”

Athena rolled her eyes. “Obviously. I mean what’s it for? You never take baths.”

“It’s for you,” Bobby said simply, and that left Athena speechless. Unwillingly, just how upset she was came over her all at once, and tears sprang to her eyes.

“Hey, no, no, no,” Bobby said. He stood and came to stand in front of her. He cupped her face in his hands and rubbed his thumbs across her cheeks. “Hey, hey,” he said again, soothingly. “It’s ok, babe, all right? I’m right here.” He kept holding her, looking her in the eye, his gaze steady and warm and concerned. Athena held it until she could manage to take in a trembling breath and let it out. 

“Come on,” Bobby said, “let’s get you in here.”

With gentle, familiar fingers he helped her remove her clothing. First her shirt over her head, then her pants down her hips. He unfastened her bra behind her back and slid the straps down her arms, and she pulled her underwear down her legs. And then he did something that made her smile, even though her throat still hurt with how she was trying to keep her tears at bay. Like a gentleman, he gripped her hand and held it up, as if he were handing her into a carriage. 

The water in the tub was almost scalding, just the way Athena liked it. Bobby had placed her favorite bath bomb in it, a rose-scented one with essential oils that left her skin supple and made her feel like a petal. She sunk down into the tub, letting the water rise around her to cover her legs, her stomach, her breasts. It felt good against her muscles, and already she could feel the tension easing out of her body.

Bobby stood by the edge of the tub and watched her. The look on his face was serious, and Athena felt stripped underneath it, even though he’d just helped her undress and now her body was hid beneath the pink water. 

“Are you okay?” Bobby asked. “Tell me the truth, this time. Please.”

Athena pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapped an arm around them. She cupped some water in her hand and let it fall back into the tub. She played like that for a moment, and when Bobby said nothing else she said, “I’ll be better if you join me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

Bobby took off his shirt, his jeans and boxers. He climbed into the tub behind Athena. The water sloshed a little over the sides as he moved, but calmed after Athena scooched back and settled herself against him. She closed her eyes and sighed into him. He felt good behind her. Solid, inviting. They stayed quiet for a long time. Bobby caressed her arm with a hand. He cupped water to pour over her and massaged her shoulders.

When the water had gone from hot to warm, Bobby pulled her closer to him. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss against the shell of her ear. “You gonna talk to me?” he asked.

Athena shrugged. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t want to talk to him, as it was that she’d never spoken to anyone about it. It’d always been easier to stay silent, to let her sadness and uneasiness go unarticulated, the easier for them to fade—until the next fight she had with her mom. She and her mother, the strain they had between them, it was something intimate and intricate, an entire history between them. Athena didn’t know if she could say what she felt now without mixing it up with everything she’d ever felt towards her mother. 

“It’s just a fight I had with my mom,” she said finally. “It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid if it makes you feel this bad.”

Athena let a puff of air out through her mouth. “What kind of grown woman cries because of her mom? It’s silly.”

“Was it—did you fight about me? I thought we were doing better now.”

“What?” Athena twisted in Bobby’s arms to look up at his face. His brows were furrowed and he looked at her searchingly. “Baby, no,” she said. “We put that conversation to bed a long time ago. She wouldn’t say anything against you now.”

“Then what is it?”

Athena tried to explain. “It’s nothing in particular. It’s just, sometimes when I speak to her I can see how disappointed she is in me. She doesn’t even have to say anything. Actually, it’s it’s worse when she says nothing. It’s like she’s using her silence to judge me. And—and,” here Athena faltered. Her voice became smaller and she had to take a breath before she could continue. “And sometimes I can tell she would have been happier with a different daughter.” 

She shrugged, tried to make as if what she’d just said didn’t matter much, but it was half-hearted. She knew Bobby wouldn’t be convinced, and part of her was getting weary of acting like she was unaffected. She wanted to lean back and fall asleep in Bobby’s arms like this, without having to worry about the water around them getting uncomfortably cold, and getting up and drying herself off with pruned fingers, getting dressed and climbing into bed. They were the simplest of acts, easy things she would normally do reflexively, but right then, after saying aloud what she’d barely ever allowed herself to think, they seemed enormous, daunting.

Behind her, Bobby reached out for her hands and linked their fingers together, so that his arms cradled hers on the rim of the tub. 

“Remember when she first visited us?” he asked.

“You mean when she asked me why I was marrying you and implied I was a bad parent? How could I forget?”

“No, not that part. Remember when you couldn’t take her and your dad to the airport, and Michael was on deadline, and so I had to take them?”

“Oh no,” Athena said. She held back a groan. “What’d she do?”

“Nothing,” Bobby said. “She just told me not to hurt you.”

It took a moment for Athena to understand Bobby’s words.

“What?” she said. It came out a whisper.

Bobby raised a hand that was twined together with hers to his lips and kissed her fingers. 

“She told me you were her baby, and that even though you’re grown she still wants to protect you. She told me not to hurt you, because you’re much softer than you look.”

And then Athena did cry. She was silent, and she barely moved at all, but Bobby curled himself around her and held her tight until she took a last shuddering breath. She didn’t wipe her tears away, let the streaks dry on her face.

Afterwards, when the water got cold like she knew it would, Bobby stood and stepped out the tub before her. He wrapped a towel around his waist and rubbed another quickly against his hair. Then he turned back to her, hand outstretched to help her up and out of the tub. He took a towel and dried her off himself. Her face, her neck and shoulders and arms, her breasts and her belly. He crouched down to run the towel over her her legs, down to her feet, and Athena placed hand on his shoulder to keep her balance. Through all this they were silent. Sometimes they didn’t need words. 

When he was done drying her off, Bobby took Athena’s terrycloth robe and tucked her into it, tying it loosely around her middle. Then he kissed her, long and gentle until she felt like putty in his arms. She was sleepy now, but it was different from before. The anger was gone. Instead of wanting to sleep to forget, now Athena wanted sleep so she could luxuriate in how content she felt, how loved. Bobby picked her up, one arm under the crook of her bent knees and another cradling her back. Athena placed her arms around his neck as he carried her to their bed, walking slowly and gazing at her the whole while. 

A few weeks later their kids were visiting Michael and his live-in boyfriend Nathan. They were sleeping over, and so Athena and Bobby had the house to themselves all weekend. 

“You want to do something special?” Athena asked. “Maybe some wine, maybe some dancing?” She danced a few steps though no music was on, moving her shoulders and hips. She bit her lip and winked playfully at Bobby, held up a hand and curled her finger in a come hither motion. Bobby laughed and came to her. They kissed and nuzzled each other more than they danced, and in the end they decided on wine and a movie. They could cuddle on the couch together, and it wouldn’t matter if they fell asleep.

“What do you want to watch?” Bobby asked. 

“Mmmm,” Athena said, “ _Superman_. The ’78 version with Reeve and Margot Kidder, not any of that other mess, even if Larry Fishburne is in it.”

Bobby turned to her with raised eyebrows. “You have very strong opinions on this.”

“It’s called taste.”

“I thought you didn’t watch this kind of ‘superhero nonsense’?” 

“Robert Wade Nash,” Athena said. She made her voice mockingly disapproving. “ _Superman_ is not nonsense. _Superman_ is a classic.”

“Oh yeah?” Bobby said. He grinned at her, his eyes crinkling up at the sides, and Athena could tell he was about to start teasing her about something.

“What?” she said, already defensive.

“Hen told me.” Bobby grinned even wider.

“Hen told you what?” Athena said. She had an idea of what it might be, and if she was right she was going to make Hen pay for it.

“Your nickname for me. Before we started dating.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bobby snaked his arms around Athena’s middle and kissed her on the corner of her mouth. She curled her arms about his shoulders, pulling him closer still.

“Are you sure about that?” Bobby asked. He kissed her jaw and her neck. “She said you called me Clark Kent.”

“I called you that _once_.”

“Hmmm,” Bobby said. “You know, Thena, I think you might have a crush on me.” He moved lower down her body, nudged her shirt up and pressed a kiss right above her belly button. 

Athena ran her fingers through his hair. “A crush?” she said, “Please.” But Bobby didn’t answer. He kept kissing her until he reached the waist of her comfy leggings, which he tugged down with deft fingers.

They didn’t manage to watch the movie that night or the next, but it was all right. They had so many more nights together like this, loving and caring for each other and making each other happy just because they could. 


End file.
